6-26-09 by dugan
I’m certainly not a big fan of the House energy and climate bill that received a fake debate and a mini-filibuster before passing 219-212 in the House of Representatives today. By fake, I mean opponents who, for instance, called the bill "a twisted desire of the Democrat party" and "economic suicide" as well as supporter who were still holding up Rep. Henry Waxman at near gunpoint for more pet concessions. You’d think Waxman, co-author of the bill with Rep. Ed Markey, was asking to outlaw electricity and make us huddle in the dark while China and India achieved robot-assisted world domination. No, wait. Was that the Transformers movie?
The real Waxman bill was already compromised nearly to death by corporate powers and polluting industries. The bill offers billions in new subsidies for the coal industry, plus a cap and trade scheme that showers free polluter credits on utilities and even oil refineries. The bill’s goals for reducing carbon emissions got continuously weaker, and the Environmental Protection Agency will lose even the power to police emissions by industrial agriculture. Obviously the Waxman bill is better than anything offered under the global warming deniers of the Bush administration, but was that the goal?
An all-afternoon and often over-the-top debate in the House of Representatives this afternoon, however, gave me a some sympathy for Waxman. At the end, minority leader John Boehner held a bore-a-thon with a caustic, hour-long commentary on the most recent amendment proposals. The gist was somehow that supporters of the bill were anti-freedom. It was pretty much all Kabuki, getting some venom on the record for the benefit of the next campaign.
The bill faces an even more uncertain fate in the Senate. It’s theoretically possible that it will get stronger. But if today is any indication, that’s about as likely as killing off the hero of a movie with sequel possibilities.